Master Chief and Ryan Payton: Power Couple

The old mills are churning out more than flour over at Kotaku. A very reliable source (has anyone ever posted news from an unreliable source?) has foretold the announcement of a certain Ryan Payton working for Microsoft Games Studio on the much whispered about "Halo Chronicles." At this point it'll probably end up being a book or some such.

But, in order to punch it up a few chapters, Ryan "The Mayton" Payton will bring his idea-man prowess to the title. I call him an idea-man because that's how I kind of see him. I'm not sure of what his exact duties were at Kojima Productions, but I do know that he induced the Metal Gear series with some of that sweet, American flavour. He took NASCAR, KFC's chicken bowls, and a cup of Starbucks and smooshed it all in with that Japanese tomfoolery, to make a game much more palpable for Western tastes. Outside of coming up with ideas of how to make Metal Gear better, I'm not sure what he did.

So now with Payton supposedly working at Microsoft, what exactly does that mean for Halo? Will he be making the game more Japan-esy this time around? He rumoured as being the creative director for the game, which seems appropriate.

It's a little early to consider this as little more than "cool", simply because there's no real evidence of this being good or bad news. I say that because while Payton is a creative person, it's hard to tell how much of his previous work was his own (and it really was only MGS4 that he took a more hands-on role).

No matter how you wanna look at it, it's great to have someone so respected working on one of the biggest franchises in gaming. If you haven't listened to the Kojima Productions Report, you should consider it. It's a bit dated now, post-MGS4, but it's still a great insight into the development of such a huge game. Hopefully he can find time to do the same with whatever he ends up working on next.

Aim for the moon, Ryan. If you miss, you'll still end up in the stars.
- Margaret Thatcher